Latest news with #PiersForster
Observer
20 hours ago
- Science
- Observer
Study: World has three years left to stay below 1.5 degrees warming
Only three years are left to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius if climate-harming emissions remain at their current level, according to study by a team of over 60 international scientists published on Thursday. Scientists found that the carbon budget will be exhausted in a little more than three years - meaning the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted by humanity to permanently keep warming to 1.5 degrees,the limit set by the Paris Agreement to try and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. The carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.6 or 1.7 degrees could be surpassed within nine years, according to the annual Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) study presented at the annual UN climate talks in the western German city of Bonn. The talks in Bonn, where the UN Climate Change Secretariat is headquartered, are seen as a critical step in shaping the global climate agenda ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil,known as COP30, later this year. "Both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented," said lead author Piers Forster. "Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts," he added. "Climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up with what's needed to address the ever-growing impacts." Sea levels rise by over 20 centimetres Sea levels rose by an average of around 26 millimetres per year between 2019 and 2024, according to the study, meaning long-term sea level rise has more than doubled since the beginning of the 20th century. "Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228mm," said Dr Aimée Slangen, research leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. "This seemingly small number is having an outsized impact on low-lying coastal areas, making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, posing a threat to humans and coastal ecosystems," she added. "The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades." The study conducted by a team comprising over 60 international researchers aims to present the latest scientific findings on climate change and the human impact on the ecosystem. Is 1.5 degrees dead? In 2015, 195 parties adopted the legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, ideally to 1.5 degrees. According to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024 was the first year since measurements began that exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold on average worldwide. However, this does not mean that the limit set out in the Paris Agreement is out of reach, since the treaty allows for temperature deviations that are averaged over a period of at least 20 years. Regardless, experts believe it will be extremely difficult to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, estimating that greenhouse gas emissions would have to fall by at least 43% by 2030 to achieve the feat. Large quantities of greenhouse gases would also have to be removed from the atmosphere, scientists say. But many countries are currently back pedalling on climate protection- most notably the US under President Donald Trump, who ordered his country to exit the Paris Agreement for a second time upon taking office in January. Trump already withdrew the US from the international climate accord during his first term as president, a move that was later reversed by the Biden administration.
BBC News
a day ago
- Science
- BBC News
Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn
EPA The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change. But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests - leaving that international goal in peril. Climate change has already worsened many weather extremes - such as the UK's 40C heat in July 2022 - and has rapidly raised global sea levels, threatening coastal communities. "Things are all moving in the wrong direction," said lead author Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds. "We're seeing some unprecedented changes and we're also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well." These changes "have been predicted for some time and we can directly place them back to the very high level of emissions", he added. At the beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the most important planet-warming gas - for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C. But by the start of 2025 this so-called "carbon budget" had shrunk to 130 billion tonnes, according to the new study. That reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is exhausted. This could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later. Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s. A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather patterns. But human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers estimate. This current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade – much faster than anything in the geological record. And if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year 2030. After this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. But the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card. "For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London. 'Every fraction of warming' matters The study is filled with striking statistics highlighting the magnitude of the climate change that has already happened. Perhaps the most notable is the rate at which extra heat is accumulating in the Earth's climate system, known as "Earth's energy imbalance" in scientific jargon. Over the past decade or so, this rate of heating has been more than double that of the 1970s and 1980s and an estimated 25% higher than the late 2000s and 2010s. "That's a really large number, a very worrying number" over such a short period, said Dr Matthew Palmer of the UK Met Office, and associate professor at the University of Bristol. The recent uptick is fundamentally due to greenhouse gas emissions, but a reduction in the cooling effect from small particles called aerosols has also played a role. This extra energy has to go somewhere. Some goes into warming the land, raising air temperatures, and melting the world's ice. But about 90% of the excess heat is taken up by the oceans. That not only means disruption to marine life but also higher sea levels: warmer ocean waters take up more space, in addition to the extra water that melting glaciers are adding to our seas. The rate of global sea-level rise has doubled since the 1990s, raising the risks of flooding for millions of people living in coastal areas worldwide. PA Media While this all paints a bleak picture, the authors note that the rate of emissions increases appears to be slowing as clean technologies are rolled out. They argue that "rapid and stringent" emissions cuts are more important than ever. The Paris target is based on very strong scientific evidence that the impacts of climate change would be far greater at 2C of warming than at 1.5C. That has often been oversimplified as meaning below 1.5C of warming is "safe" and above 1.5C "dangerous". In reality, every extra bit of warming increases the severity of many weather extremes, ice melt and sea-level rise. "Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," said Prof Rogelj. "Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire," he added. Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming. Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change. But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests - leaving that international goal in peril. "Things are all moving in the wrong direction," said lead author Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds. "We're seeing some unprecedented changes and we're also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well." These changes "have been predicted for some time and we can directly place them back to the very high level of emissions", he added. At the beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the most important planet-warming gas - for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C. But by the start of 2025 this so-called "carbon budget" had shrunk to 130 billion tonnes, according to the new study. That reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is exhausted. This could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later. Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s. A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather patterns. But human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers estimate. This current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade – much faster than anything in the geological record. And if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year 2030. After this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. But the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card. "For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London. The study is filled with striking statistics highlighting the magnitude of the climate change that has already happened. Perhaps the most notable is the rate at which extra heat is accumulating in the Earth's climate system, known as "Earth's energy imbalance" in scientific jargon. Over the past decade or so, this rate of heating has been more than double that of the 1970s and 1980s and an estimated 25% higher than the late 2000s and 2010s. "That's a really large number, a very worrying number" over such a short period, said Dr Matthew Palmer of the UK Met Office, and associate professor at the University of Bristol. The recent uptick is fundamentally due to greenhouse gas emissions, but a reduction in the cooling effect from small particles called aerosols has also played a role. This extra energy has to go somewhere. Some goes into warming the land, raising air temperatures, and melting the world's ice. But about 90% of the excess heat is taken up by the oceans. That not only means disruption to marine life but also higher sea levels: warmer ocean waters take up more space, in addition to the extra water that melting glaciers are adding to our seas. The rate of global sea-level rise has doubled since the 1990s, raising the risks of flooding for millions of people living in coastal areas worldwide. While this all paints a bleak picture, the authors note that the rate of emissions increases appears to be slowing as clean technologies are rolled out. They argue that "rapid and stringent" emissions cuts are more important than ever. The Paris target is based on very strong scientific evidence that the impacts of climate change would be far greater at 2C of warming than at 1.5C. That has often been oversimplified as meaning below 1.5C of warming is "safe" and above 1.5C "dangerous". In reality, every extra bit of warming increases the severity of many weather extremes, ice melt and sea-level rise. "Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," said Prof Rogelj. "Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire," he added. A simple guide to climate change What is the Paris climate agreement? 2024 first year to pass 1.5C global warming limit Coastlines in danger even if climate target met, scientists warn Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.
The National
a day ago
- Science
- The National
Just three years to limit global warming to 1.5C, top scientists warn
More than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists said in a new report that countries are continuing to burn record amounts of fossil fuels while felling carbon-rich forests – leaving the international goal in peril, the BBC reports. The report said that the global 'carbon budget' – the amount of CO2 that can be emitted to give a 50% chance of keeping warming limited to 1.5C – had shrunk. In 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could emit 500 billion more tonnes of CO2 for a 50% chance of breaching the limit. READ MORE: US government 'raises concerns' over plans for Chinese factory in Scotland This has now plunged to 130 billion. If emissions remain at their current rate – around 40 billion per year – that gives roughly three years before the 'carbon budget' is spent. The Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 by nearly 200 countries, set a target of limiting warming to 1.5C above temperatures set in the late 1800s before global industrialisation. It is generally agreed to be a target measured over a 20-year average, so that even while 2024 was more than 1.5C hotter than pre-industrial temperatures, this does not constitute a breach. The current rate of global warming is 0.27C per decade, which is much faster than at any point in the Earth's history. If this keeps up, the planet will breach the 1.5C target by 2030. Professor Piers Forster, lead author of the report and director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds, told the BBC: 'Things are all moving in the wrong direction. 'We're seeing some unprecedented changes and we're also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well.' There are hopes that CO2 can be sucked out of the atmosphere in a bid to reverse global warming, however scientists caution against seeing this as a solution. Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London, said: 'For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions." READ MORE: Plans submitted to remove 34 turbines from Highland wind farm The report found that the Earth's 'energy imbalance' – the rate at which extra heat accumulates in the climate system – is increasing. Over the last decade or so, this rate of heating is more than doubled since the 1970s and 1980s and is 25% than in the 2000s and 2010s. Dr Matthew Palmer of the UK Met Office said this was a 'very worrying number' over a short period of time. Much of this extra heat – around 90% – is absorbed by the oceans, wrecking havoc on marine life and raising sea levels because ice melts. While the warnings from the report are stark, its authors said that the rate of emissions increases appears to be slowing as new clean tech is being used.
NDTV
a day ago
- Science
- NDTV
Warning Signs On Climate Flashing Bright Red: Top Scientists
From carbon pollution to sea-level rise to global heating, the pace and level of key climate change indicators are all in unchartered territory, more than 60 top scientists warned Thursday. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation hit a new high in 2024 and averaged, over the last decade, a record 53.6 billion tonnes per year -- that's 100,000 tonnes per minute -- of CO2 or its equivalent in other gases, they reported in a peer-reviewed update. Earth's surface temperature last year breached 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time, and the additional CO2 humanity can emit with a two-thirds chance of staying under that threshold long-term -- our 1.5C "carbon budget" -- will be exhausted in a couple of years, they calculated. Investment in clean energy outpaced investment in oil, gas and coal last year two-to-one, but fossil fuels account for more than 80 percent of global energy consumption, and growth in renewables still lags behind new demand. Included in the 2015 Paris climate treaty as an aspirational goal, the 1.5C limit has since been validated by science as necessary for avoiding a catastrophically climate-addled world. The hard cap on warming to which nearly 200 nations agreed was "well below" two degrees, commonly interpreted to mean 1.7C to 1.8C. "We are already in crunch time for these higher levels of warming," co-author Joeri Rogelj, a professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London, told journalists in a briefing. "The next three or four decades is pretty much the timeline over which we expect a peak in warming to happen." 'The wrong direction' No less alarming than record heat and carbon emissions is the gathering pace at which these and other climate indicators are shifting, according to the study, published in Earth System Science Data. Human-induced warming increased over the last decade at a rate "unprecedented in the instrumental record", and well above the 2010-2019 average registered in the UN's most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, in 2021. The new findings -- led by the same scientists using essentially the same methods -- are intended as an authoritative albeit unofficial update of the benchmark IPCC reports underpinning global climate diplomacy. They should be taken as a reality check by policymakers, the authors suggested. "I tend to be an optimistic person," said lead author Piers Forster, head of the University of Leed's Priestley Centre for Climate Futures. "But if you look at this year's update, things are all moving in the wrong direction." The rate at which sea levels have shot up in recent years is also alarming, the scientists said. After creeping up, on average, well under two millimetres per year from 1901 to 2018, global oceans have risen 4.3 mm annually since 2019. What happens next? An increase in the ocean watermark of 23 centimetres -- the width of a letter-sized sheet of paper -- over the last 125 years has been enough to imperil many small island states and hugely amplify the destructive power of storm surges worldwide. An additional 20 centimetres of sea level rise by 2050 would cause one trillion dollars in flood damage annually in the world's 136 largest coastal cities, earlier research has shown. Another indicator underlying all the changes in the climate system is Earth's so-called energy imbalance, the difference between the amount of solar energy entering the atmosphere and the smaller amount leaving it. So far, 91 percent of human-caused warming has been absorbed by oceans, sparing life on land an unlivable hell-scape. But the planet's energy imbalance has nearly doubled in the last 20 years, and scientists do not know how long oceans will continue to massively soak up this excess heat. Dire future climate impacts worse than what the world has already experienced are already baked in over the next decade or two. But beyond that, the future is in our hands, the scientists made clear. "We will rapidly reach a level of global warming of 1.5C, but what happens next depends on the choices which will be made," said co-author and former IPCC co-chair Valerie Masson-Delmotte. The Paris Agreement's 1.5C target allows for the possibility of ratcheting down global temperatures below that threshold before century's end. Ahead of a critical year-end climate summit in Brazil, international cooperation has been weakened by the US withdrawal the Paris Agreement. President Donald Trump's dismantling of domestic climate policies means the US is likely to fall short on its emissions reduction targets, and could sap the resolve of other countries to deepen their own pledges, experts say.
